


the fresh blood in thy cheeks

by newredshoes



Category: Henry IV Part 1 - Shakespeare, Hollow Crown (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Married Couple, Self-Indulgent, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-06
Updated: 2012-11-06
Packaged: 2017-11-18 02:02:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newredshoes/pseuds/newredshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Harry Percy was besotted with his new bride. All remarked upon her poise, her fine teeth, her pale skin, creamy as a full moon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the fresh blood in thy cheeks

**Author's Note:**

> So self-indulgent! Heavy on the comfort, well slathered with shmoop. Thanks muchly to Adiva, for the suggestion, for the flailing, and for Kate Percy herself.

He brought her home in November, the dark-eyed Mortimer girl. She came with a rich retinue, a dowry to make even the lords of Northumberland blush. Young Harry Percy was besotted with his new bride. All remarked upon her poise, her fine teeth, her pale skin, creamy as a full moon. She and her husband hardly left room for others to congratulate them, so close they kept to each other, murmuring, laughing, picking little fights.

They had enjoyed each other since the wedding, and had no mind to stop. Both were of a ravenous nature, to which they were well suited. Harry loved her in body, all the white length of her, though he marveled at her strength: she was strong and lean as a soldier. Yet one morning, as the sun came to rouse them, tangled together still, Kate stroked his face and said that he must not come to her that night.

“Wherefore?” He frowned. “Are you not happy?”

“My lord, too happy to bear.”

He kissed her again, because her face told him it was true. Her fingers curled in the hair at the back of his neck, but she pushed him off and said, “You must not come to me, and you must let me from your sight. If you love me, Harry, you’ll not ask me why.”

Harry loved his wife, loved her more than he’d thought he knew how. He sat up, and she watched him, guarded and calculating as he hadn’t seen her yet. “How long, then, this forbearance?”

She smiled. “It is not exile. Only one night, so then you might more relish the return.” She pushed him back to the pillow and climbed on top of him. “Kiss me again, love,” she murmured, and so he did.

How he filled that day, he could not properly tell after: he wrote letters or saw to his dogs or bent his thoughts on Scotland. The sun set early, and he ate his supper alone. He longed for Kate, knowing she was somewhere in the castle. The wind shrieked past the windows, and he paced rather than slept. Rain swept through after midnight; Harry idled by a fire, one hound at his feet.

The game was not a good one, and he had a mind to convince her so. When the room filled with thin, weak light, he stalked toward her quarters, rehearsing speeches. Her door was ajar, and he let himself in. He expected to surprise her. She lay on her side, undressed, facing the wall. Her skin was wan and tight around her bones: he thought he could count ribs, when he knew full well he should not. Harry ventured closer. Her black hair lay damp against her shoulders: bits of heather were tangled here and there.

“Kate,” he said, and her whole body stiffened. He reached for her shoulder, and she rolled on her back to face him.

“Are we still man and wife?” Dark bruises ringed her eyes. Her voice was rough, as though she had dragged it behind her.

“How now?” He sat on the edge of the bed. “Kate, how came you like this?”

She took a deep breath; her ribs strained up and out. Harry crawled onto the mattress and pressed himself close. She huddled into him, and gripped his jacket, unspeaking. He felt her shivering along the whole length of him.

“I have been so happy this month past,” she said.

“And I, love. Why should that end?”

“A wolf bit me when I was a girl.”

She lay her head on his shoulder. He stared straight ahead. When he shifted, she grew tense again, but he only reached to pull a blanket over her. “I’ll not see thee cold,” he said.

She held up a hand against the blanket. Her frown was grave. “Wilt thou keep me, my lord?”

“Kate.” He took her hand and kissed the raw knuckles. “Couldst thou be anything but the world?”

They woke together at noontime. Some of the pallor had left her face, but her stomach complained, at which she looked abashed. “My habit is to eat that night,” she said. “I do not yet know the country here.”

“Marry,” he laughed, “what grounds we two must tread.”

There was a wildness to her relief, and his interest in her was vast. She unleashed torrents of words, stories, sensations at every question Harry asked. She spoke of nights in the Welsh marches, her every fiber thrumming and alive. She told him what she smelled, how she could not remember what it was not to learn from scents, how she knew instantly that she could love Harry when they met. He asked her what she looked like. “I am gray,” she said. “With very large feet!” He took her hand in his and felt along the bones of her fingers, trying to imagine how they shifted and settled.

She only spoke once of how she came to change: it seemed to her incidental, an encounter that set her on a different course. She showed him the faint scars of the bite on her thigh. “I should have more if I did not heal so well,” she told him. “I have not had a new scar since I was eleven.”

It was a secret within the family; not even the king who would make her brother heir knew, which surely was treason, but Lord Mortimer would not risk her confinement or destruction. She was no more danger to others in that shape as this one: she thought and felt and understood just the same. “I have never spoken of it, though, nor felt free to do so. I feared so dearly that it might keep me from life, for all that I love it.” She smiled wryly. “I will confess, my lord, that part of your attraction was the emptiness in Northumberland.”

“What! Above my face or my wits or other many charms?”

“Your own charms are fewer than you think, love.”

“Fie, now I’ll stop up thy mouth.”

When they dressed at last and came out from her chambers, she all but pulled him along toward the kitchens. When she was sated, she told him more, how she eluded visiting nobles on full moons, what to say if company should expect her those nights, where she went if she needed to be in a city.

Her systems of evasion were as fascinating as the change itself. He told her when to slip past the watch at the southwest gate, how often the stable boy made his rounds, where the moor became cliffs over the sea. “Shall I see you?” he asked, because he wanted to—he wished to know his wife.

She frowned suddenly. “My own mother has not seen me so.”

“She has not seen thee as I have.”

“Go to!” She dropped her eyes, and drummed her fingertips on the edge of the table. “Let me think a while. This is still sudden for us both.”

Kate held off speaking of it then. When Harry pried, she shook her head. “Love, let me play at merely being thy wife.” And so they ran the household, and saw to business, and when they fought, they roared, and when they loved, they lost the hours well. December brought long nights and deep snow. The moon got fatter, and Kate grew restless. She came to Harry before the sun set, her long blue coat wrapped about her close.

“Walk with me.”

She brought him to the postern near the kitchen stores. “Do not follow,” she said. “I’ll know if you do.”

“You think I am scared of thee,” said Harry, smiling. “I am not.”

She laughed. “More fool you, my lord.” She disrobed and hung the coat on a hook. “Come, love. Kiss me again.”

She left the door open behind her, barefoot in the purple-shadowed snow. Harry let her hear it swing shut. He stood holding the handle, listening for something, though he could not name it. The minute overwhelmed his patience; he yanked open the door, but all that met him was chill. Her tracks struck out away from the castle: two by two, then a disturbance, and then, with long strides, sets of four.

At dawn, he woke to a solid weight at his side, huddled under the blankets with him. “Good morrow, my lord,” she murmured against his ear. Her skin was still flushed, and she moved slowly, sleek and content.

They would have this, over and over again. Harry hooked one leg around hers: her feet were freezing, though the rest of her ran hot. He pushed her hair away from her face, and picked away a sprig of heather. “A good night abroad, my love?”

“I’ll tell thee of it all,” she sighed. “Only let me be here with the world.”

Again he kissed her, his dark-eyed wife. They kept close while the sun rose and rose.


End file.
